


Eight Wedding Nights Laverne and Lenny Could Have Shared (and the One They Did)

by Missy



Category: Laverne & Shirley (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Developing Relationship, F/M, Five Times, Friendship, Humor, Marriage of Convenience, Pining, Pregnant Sex, Recreational Drug Use, Requited Love, Romance, Unplanned Pregnancy, Unrequited Crush, Wedding Night
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-08
Updated: 2020-12-23
Packaged: 2021-02-28 18:54:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 10,106
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23062045
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Missy/pseuds/Missy
Summary: Eight seasons, eight different possible wedding nights, and one post-canon union.
Relationships: Laverne DeFazio/Lenny Kosnowski
Comments: 6
Kudos: 6





	1. 1957 - No Goosebumps

**Author's Note:**

> Alternate take on season 1's Falter at the Altar.

Everything had gone beautifully. 

The wedding had been well-attended and prettily put together. Shirley had been there to play maid of honor, and Frank had given the bride away happily. The reception had gone smoothly. When Shirley slipped into bed – she told Lenny this later, after they’d come back from Green Bay and the sun was just starting to crest over the tallest building on Knapp Street – she’d thought all was well.

Then, a little past midnight, the phone rang. 

She could barely make out what Laverne was saying on the other end of the line, she was sobbing so hard. She heard things like ‘no goosebumps’ and ‘fail’ and ‘get me.’

“Vernie,” Shirley said calmly, “can you get to a public place?”

“I’m all alone,” she bawled. “Sal left a little while ago. Just please send someone. And don’t come!”

“Oh boy…” Shirley desperately scoured her mind for someone – anyone – who might be awake past midnight on a day like this. She could try Laverne’s father, but no way would she want to face him after what had happened. She could try Carmine, but he didn’t have a car that wasn’t the partial property of Lucille Lockwash. Desperation drove her to the fourth floor, where Lenny and Squiggy had barely moved in weeks before.

Lenny was drafted into service for three reasons – first of all, he and Laverne had always gotten along well even though she persisted in insisting she wasn’t his friend; second, he was the only person in the building who was remotely sober enough to drive after the wingding Laverne’s father had thrown. And, most importantly, he knew how to get to the hotel in Green Bay where Laverne and Sal had gone for their honeymoon, as he’d delivered several kegs of beer there the Friday before.

So it was that Lenny found himself driving to a pretty swanky Howard Johnson, arriving at two in the morning and begging the nice lady behind the desk to call Laverne’s room – barely remembering to address her by her married name instead of De Fazio.

Lenny found himself on the twentieth floor, knocking on the door of the honeymoon suite. “Laverne? It’s me. Lenny from Knapp Street! And the apartment! And Shotz! And the high-“ 

Laverne ripped open the door and glared at him. He tried mightily not to notice that she was wearing a lacy cream-colored nightie and focused on the mascara running down her cheeks.

“Why’d Shirley send you?” she asked.

“Because,” he said. “I’m the only one who knew where this place was.” He leaned against the doorjam. “What happened? You and Sal looked so happy today, dancing around to Frank Sinatra.”

Laverne promptly burst into tears.

Lenny hated it when girls cried in front of him. Not only was he a sympathetic crier himself, but this was a girl he had secret, special feelings for. A girl he’d had tender emotions for since he was a little kid. He stood there awkwardly until she threw herself at his chest. He patted the middle of her back and didn’t say anything until she volunteered more information, and barely choked back his own tears.

“It was awful, Len!” she said. “We were in bed, and I just…I didn’t feel anything!” she gasped out. “We had a big fight and he drove off!”

Part of Lenny was glad that Sal hadn’t had any “fun” with Laverne. The rest of him kind of pitied the guy. “Hey, it’s okay – you’ll talk it out.”

She shook her head fiercely. “A guy can forgive a lot of things, but ‘I don’t feel anything when you touch me’ is hard to work through.”

Lenny winced. “Do you wanna go home?”

“That’s the worst part,” Laverne admitted. “Shirley tried to warn me it’d turn out like this. I can’t face her, Len. Not yet.” She headed into the plush motel room and Lenny followed her on instinct. “I’m sorry you drove up all this way to get me, but I don’t think I can stand an ‘I told you so’ until morning.”

“Great,” Lenny complained. “What am I gonna do? I’m too tired to drive home and then back up here to get you - I’ve gotta be at work by ten tomorrow and if I don’t get the truck back by then Big Al will can me for sure.”

She winced. “All right. You can stay here for the rest of the night.” His eyes lit up. “On the other side of the bed,” she said quickly. 

“Got it,” Lenny said. He was too tired to whine at this point, or even to be ungrateful. He just slid his motorcycle boots off and took off his red satin jacket – the one she’d emblazoned so cleverly with one of her spare L’s, to keep him, she said, from looking like an idiot. 

Out of respect for her and that thoughtfulness, he kept a comfortable distance between himself and Laverne, rolling his body up in the passion pink sheets.

Laverne, at least, had stopped crying. Maybe it was his presence, or the smell of his socks – something had managed to jolt her out of her tears. She lay down on her back with a sigh, close enough that Lenny could smell her perfume wafting through the air. A drugstore knock-off of Shalamar; she’d worn it ever since their highschool graduation day, and the scent of it haunted his mind. It was exotic, and not the baby soft, feminine odor that Shirley carried with her wherever she went. It was the perfume, Squiggy had once joked, earning himself an elbow in the gut from Lenny, of the playgirl.

Lenny turned his own eyes toward the ceiling – which, he realized abruptly, had been done up to resemble a beautiful night sky. He searched his mind for the right words to fill up the long night that stretched out ahead of them, but could conjure nothing helpful to mind. 

Finally, they arrived. “So,” Lenny said, as they stared at the fake stars twinkling away over their heads, “did I ever tell you what Kosnowski means in Polish?”


	2. 1958 - Flipped Coins

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alter-canon for "Honeymoon Hotel" with a sidebar of "Look Before You Leap."

“We’ll be glad to take a picture in the hallway, won’t we Guido, honey?” 

Laverne could almost hear Squiggy’s muffled response – which involved multiple four letter words – as the two of them chatted with the head of the Pfister Hotel’s publicity department about the latest honeymoon-related duty they needed to complete.

“Hah! Yes, that’s Italian for… ‘We would be honored!’” Shirley said. “Well, darling, let’s go shoot those pictures!”

Laverne waited a few minutes before she threw open the bathroom door, shaking her and Lenny loose from its perfumed confines. Once freed, they shared a look and burst into laughter. 

“Boy, are we lucky!” she said. “That tux fits Squig like a glove, even though he’s skinnier than Carmine.”

“We’re fooling the pants off of them,” Lenny crowed. He sat down on the bed and it burst into a musical overture, scaring him back into a standing position.

Trying to avoid detection, Laverne settled in over on the couch. She patted the spot beside her, and Lenny sat, close enough that their knees brushed.

He gave her a smile. “I’m glad you ran into us downstairs at the proctologist’s convention,” he said.

“Which makes me wonder something - what you two were doing down there?” Laverne said. “Thinking about changing professions?” She was teasing, of course – the idea of the boys practicing medicine was a horrifying one, as much as she loved the big dopes.

As friends, she reminded herself. In Squiggy’s case that was an easy thought. In Lenny’s…

Lenny shrugged. “Hey, free eats are free eats,” he pointed out. Then his eyes went wide as he tilted back his head, eyes on the ceiling. “Huh, look up.”

Laverne gave him a sour look. “Len, I ain’t going to look up. Every time you tell me to do that, I end up with an ice cube down my blouse, or stuck in a double make-out.”

“No, Laverne! Seriously, look up.”

She did, and was astonished to realize that the ceiling was mirrored from one end to the other. “Woah.”

“I know! Imagine running around naked in this place. Hundreds of little yous, all without pants on…” He bit his palm.

She snorted. Well, she couldn’t say it wasn’t a colorful image. “Yeah,” Laverne agreed. Together, they stared upward and looked at the little Lavernes and Lennys staring back, multifaceted, shining up in the glass. After a moment, Laverne realized that he seemed a little more wistful than usual.

“What’s the matter?” she asked.

“I was just thinking,” he said. “If you’d said yes a couple of months ago, this could’ve been our honeymoon night.”

“Lenny!” They’d already been through this. She hadn’t wanted to get married just because she was in trouble. It was a good thing she hadn’t said yes to him, because she absolutely wasn’t pregnant and if she’d said yes to Lenny they’d be trapped in a marriage neither of them would have wanted. It would’ve been unfair to both of them, and even to his good name. As good as the name of a guy who turned his eyelids inside out for fun and profit could be.

Or she didn’t want it. Did she? The possibility that Lenny might want it made her stomach flutter uncomfortably.

“I know it wouldn’t’ve been right,” he said. “But it’s still kind of nice to think of, ‘cause of how much I like you. Just imagine; you and me, and that weird cupid statue over the bed, and the music-making bed, and our heart-shaped toilet seat, and a hundred naked us-es…”

“Len, there will never be a hundred naked us-es.”

“Yeah?” He leaned down toward her, his lips parting, his tongue gently sliding between her lips as he lowered his head. She realized that he was trying to make her a liar. Her glands didn’t care – soon she had both arms around his surprisingly broad bak, her fingers tangled up in his gelled hair. Lenny groaned into her mouth and listed his weight into hers, getting her horizontal on the couch, pressing himself between her thighs, cupping her breast through her sweater and squeezing.

That made it her turn to moan – her nipples pebbled up, and longing seized control of her whole form. Lenny thumbed them appreciatively while she reached out for the fly of his good dress-up pants, making him groan when she teased the heft of him as he strained against his zipper.

Her realizations flew heavy and fast. _I’m going to vodeo-do-do with Lenny Kosnowski. I’m going to vodeo-do-do with Lenny Kosnowski in the honeymoon suite at the Pfister. I’m going to vodeo do-do with Lenny, and I really oughta ask if he has a rubber…_

She liked him – maybe more than a friend – but she wasn’t going to deal with a second pregnancy scare coming up so close after the first.

Lenny shucked his jacket while kissing her, and then reached down to unbutton her sweater. Laverne arched her back and grunted into his mouth. Her hands found his good tie and tugged.

All further thoughts – sexy, hopeful, or productive - died as the door burst open. “Laverne!” Shirley shrieked from the doorway, and the couple ripped themselves in two opposing directions, staring back in horror.

“Len!” Squiggy grinned. “You sly dog!” Then he looked at Shirley and shouted “Double make-out!”

The slap he received resulted in a bruise that matched the blackness of his mustache.


	3. 1959 - Italianhood

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alternate canon for "Laverne's Arranged Marriage".

“Hello to you, my little sister in Italianhood!” Lenny said, clinging to Laverne with both hands. He felt Laverne try to pull away from him but held on tighter than he normally would have – trying to sell the lie he’d told Mr. DeFazio about being from the “Italian” part of Poland and thus a distant cousin and ergo unworthy of being whacked by the mob.

“And hello, my little sister in Italian…” Squiggy glanced at Shirley and pushed her across the room “You’re Irish, get away from me!”

“You know,” Lenny said, only to be cut off by Frank’s shouting. He realized halfway out the door that Laverne was scrambling after them. 

Lenny caught Squiggy’s shoulder. “What’s been going on with Laverne and her father?”

Squiggy shrugged. “What makes you think I know? Ain’t you the one who always knows what’s going on with Laverne?”

“Yeah,” Lenny said, shrugging. “But she keeps kicking us out whenever we go up there.”

Squiggy shrugged. “So wait for her to come out. I’m gonna go walk up to the burlesque house on Fouth and Main.”

“Without me?”

“Hey, I ain’t the one who wants to play white blight,” Squiggy said. He stomped away on foot, and Lenny found himself leaning on the concrete wall of the Pizza Bowl, waiting for Laverne to emerge.

Which she did a moment later, crying.

Whenever she cried, he melted. That was just a rule of force. Lenny chased her down, feeling ridiculous in his junior maffioso clothing and coveralls. “Laverne?” he said, before she could punch him somewhere sensitive.

To his surprise, she launched herself against his chest and hid her face there, sobbing. It reminded him of the time she’d hidden. “Hey. It’s okay,” he told her

“No it’s not,” she got out, between hiccups.

“What’s wrong? Fighting with your dad again?” 

She nodded. “I don’t think he’s gonna talk to me again,” Laverne said.

“Why?” Lenny asked.

“He arranged a marriage for me,” she stood back and looked into Lenny’s eyes. “You remember Vito?”

Lenny’s brow furrowed. “Vito with glasses from the brewery or Vito from the church?”

“From Church?”

Lenny’s jaw dropped. “The guy with no neck and square thumbs?” She nodded. “Laverne! He looks like a grunion! He ain’t even nice!” 

She nodded. “Yeah well – Pop’s been giving me the silent treatment for three days because I won’t marry him.” 

Lenny shook his head. “That ain’t fair.”

“Tell me about it.”

He reached toward his neck, and pulled the bandana he’d looped there free. Without thinking first, he wiped away her tears. 

She looked up at him then, and, abashed, he tucked it in the front pocket of his coveralls. “Wanna go get something to eat?”

Laverne shook her head. “I ain’t hungry.”

Lenny frowned at her. “I’ll buy.”

She lifted her shoulders. “Can’t promise I’ll eat it.”

“Then we’ll get a doggy bag, and you can bring it home to Shirley. Come on, Laverne, you need someone to help.”

“Shirl’s trying to do that. I saw her yelling at my Pop back at the Pizza Bowl.”

Lenny cringed. “Should we order her a Priest?”

“Nah,” Laverne said. “Shirl’s really tough. She can take care of herself.”

A tribute from a woman Lenny personally considered the toughest woman he knew. 

*** 

They found a little spaghetti joint over by the river. Lenny ordered himself lasagna, and Laverne got a small plate. She ate, to his relief. 

“Laverne, your pop can’t do this to you, y’know. It’s in the Consultation!” 

Laverne shook her head. “The ‘consultation’ don’t matter when you’re a girl,” she muttered. “My pop and mama were an arranged marriage. I guess he wants me to be as happy as they were.”

“But life don’t work that way, does it?” Lenny asked. “There’s ways out.”

“Oh yeah, Len? Then gimmie one. Tell me how to get out of this without marrying Vito or making my Pop mad.”

Lenny’s eyes lit up and he grabbed her hand. “Marry me.”

Every muscle in her body stiffened at the request. “Lenny!”

“No, it’s perfect, Laverne! If I marry you, he won’t whack me and Squig on a count of being mad at us!”

She glared at him. “…Lenny, my Pop doesn’t wanna whack you.” 

“Besides,” he added, ignoring her comment, “if you marry me, our kids won’t have hair on their thumbs. Probably,” he winced.”And you’ll be married to someone you like. It won’t have to last forever, just ‘til Vito gets that you’re off-limits.”

She bit her bottom lip and stared at her half-eaten food. She glanced up. Lenny chewed his bottom lip. 

Laverne took a deep breath. “Okay,” she said at last.

Lenny blinked. “What?”

“Okay, I’ll marry you.”

Lenny’s eyes nearly fell out of his head. His fork hit the plate, tapping against the noodle of his lasagna, which sounded like a muffled gunshot to him. “What?”

“Yeah,” she said. “I’ll marry you.” His heart took a flying leap, and he couldn’t keep the joy out of his face, and he jumped out of his seat.

“Laverne,” he said. “I’m so happy!” He bear-hugged her hard until he heard her grunt. 

“Len, this ain’t the happiest of days for me here.”

“Yeah,” he said, trying and failing to temper his own joy. “Yeah, I know. But Laverne!”

She sighed. “Just until we can convince my Pop I’m okay on my own with Shirl. AND until we can get Vito off our backs.”

“Gotcha,” Lenny said. 

She rested a hand atop his. “You’re a real sweet guy, Len. You don’t have to do any of this and I know it. That means a lot to me, y’know.”

“Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, I know.” The part of him that resented being ‘nice guy Len’ 

*** 

Frank was less than pleased with their announcement. He’d reacted with a lot of yelling, which, Lenny supposed, was at least better than the silent treatment.

Red-faced, with fury in his eyes, Frank prodded Lenny in the chest. “All right! I can accept this on a couple of conditions. One: you gonna get a better job?” he asked Lenny.

“Yes!”

“You ever gonna hit her?”

“No, Sir!” Lenny squeaked out.

“Can you give me grandkids?”

He looked over at Laverne, who had been sitting on her father’s sofa with a Kleenex balled up in her fist. “If she’ll let me,” he said.

“You gonna let him?” Frank asked.

“Pop!” Laverne cried out.

“I want grandkids!” he bellowed.

“All right! Some day!” Laverne said. 

Silence 

“Fine. You got my blessing. I’ll call things off with Vito. But if you hurt her? Even move one little hair on her head?” 

He crushed the can of soda he’d been holding.

Lenny only squeaked a little bit.

*** 

The wedding was small, tasteful, and held in a church, much to Frank’s expressed relief. Lenny kept staring at Laverne, beautiful in her dress with her hair done up – roses behind her ears. Her fingers were cold and shaky in his grip, and he heard Shirley crying beside her. Laverne didn’t shed a tear, though. But her kiss was warm enough to send fire down Lenny’s spine and make him cling to her, his big hands holding her hips in his as their small audience applauded.

He kept it clean – mostly because God was watching him. And, more frighteningly, was his new father-in-law.

Lenny barely remembered the reception. It was cheap and at the Pizza Bowl, with a simple cake and beer and pizza. Laverne danced with everyone but him. He spent time with Squiggy, who decided this was the perfect time to explain what was expected of him during his wedding night.

“…And anyway,” Squiggy concluded, “When she screams, that’s when you know she’s done.”

Lenny sat with his hand cupping his chin, a little muzzly-minded from all the beer. “That’s all?”

“Well, if she screams and hits you, that means stop. How do you not know that? Didn’tcha pay any attention back when we was bringing girls home from the Bradstreet Burlesque all the time?”

“Yeah!” Lenny said. “But that don’t mean it won’t be different! I mean, it’s Laverne.”

“Eh, a broad’s a broad,” Squiggy observed. “Just ‘cause you’ve got special little squishy feelings for her…”

“Hey, ain’t nothing squishy about my feelings for Laverne. They’re special. Important!” 

“Sure, tell yourself that when you’re howling on top of Old Pokey all alone tonight, Mr. One Wolf,” Squiggy snorted. Lenny elbowed him and the two of them started arm wrestling, right there on the table.

“Boys?” He heard Laverne’s voice dimly in the background. When they didn’t break it up, she separated them with a quick twist of her ear. “It’s time to go, Len.”

He looked right up and let go of Squiggy, moving like a zombie to stand next to Laverne, taking her hand one more time. 

Squiggy shook his head and eyed them one more time as a collective couple, Lenny in his taupe go-to-church suit with its blue tie and yellow shirt, Laverne in her borrowed-from-Edna white. “Don’t name it after me, kids,” he said, and promptly wheeled from the conversation to chase a tall, attractive blonde whom Frank had hired to wait on the wedding’s guests.

Laverne sat quiet as a statue beside Lenny the whole ride over – in a heavily decorated Shotz beer truck, complete with balloons and streamers taped to the back. They ended up at a little hotel just outside of town, and when they were finally alone, Laverne sat down at the edge of the bed and sighed heavily.

It wasn’t the most encouraging sign. Lenny locked the door and put the key on the end table, right where she could see it – so she knew he wasn’t trying to get anything off of her. “Vernie,” he said softly, “I know you ain’t in the talking mood after today…”

She groaned.

“But couldya say something to me? Your silence is spooky, and I don’t know if I’m making you mad.”

“I’m all right,” she said. “I just thought…”

“Wha?” Lenny asked, putting their suitcases down.

“I just thought my wedding night was gonna be real romantic, y’know? Candles, and wine and…”

“And a guy you actually love as the groom?”

She smiled. “You big dope. I told you I love you.”

“As a friend,” Lenny replied, to stop the bleeding.

“Yeah,” she said. “And that ain’t a bad thing.”

He headed for the front door of the room. “I’m gonna go give you a second.”

“Len…”

“Just a second,” Lenny said. When he returned a few minutes later, she was wearing her green pajamas with the purple frills on them he’d once fondled during his last stop through her lingerie drawer.

He suppressed that memory as she frowned at the sight of him and the brown, wrinkled grocery sack he’d brought with him. “Len, whatt’re you doing?”

He grinned. “Helping,” he said. Laverne watched as he pulled out a couple of prayer candles, retrieved from the nearby five and dime, and stationed them about the room, then lit them. He then pulled a bottle of cold duck from the bag and a box of Dixie Cups. He poured them each a cupful and walked to the bed.

“Len,” she said, smirking.

“What?” he asked. “Wine and candles. You ask, I gave.”

As the night went on, they felt a little better about the situation, the wine making them merrier. But when he leaned over and pecked her cheek, she leaned away from him.

“Len?”

“Sorry,” he said. “Had to press my luck.”

“Y’never know,” she said, and his eyebrow rose. “But, in other words,” said Laverne, “I ain’t ready to do anything.”

“Okay.” Lenny got on his knees on his side of the bed. He unzipped his suitcase and ripped through it, throwing clothing everywhere, until he found what he sought. Placing Jeffrey between them like the Sword of Damocles, he said, “I Leonard Kosnowski, husband of Laverne Kos…De…Nasio?” he said, shooting her a confused look and getting an exhausted shrug in response. “Do slalomly swear that I will obey the sacred boundary between man and beast and will never let my hand, leg, or other special places cross over the back of this iguana unless my wife does agree to let me feel her up.” He spat into his palm and offered her his hand. “Honest.”

Her lip curled up in disdain, but still she extended her palm – then wiped it against the side of her pajama top. He then laid down beside her in his wedding suit, kicking off his motorcycle boots. “Thanks, Len,” she said. She didn’t make a move as he turned off the lights and let the candles glow around them until they guttered out.

“Anything for my little sister in Italianhood,” he said.

She laughed, and he knew why. Lenny hadn’t had a ‘sisterly’ thought for Laverne since they were small children. He couldn’t imagine living a life where he couldn’t touch her, taste her, hold her.

But as Laverne had said, one never knew.

The tips of their fingers were touching, over the back of Jeffrey, by the time the sun rose.


	4. 1960 - The Wolf with the Red Roses

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alt canon for "Lenny's Crush."

_On a hot summer night_

_Would you offer your throat to the wolf with the red roses?_

**Yes!**

_I bet you say that to all the boys…_ \- Jim Steinman, You Took the Words Right Out of My Mouth (Hot Summer Night)

*** 

“Okay.” He walked over to her, all tentative nerves. His hand was gentle on her arm as he spun her about to face him. “Okay. Then be my wife.”

Laverne stared at him. Lenny didn’t move an inch, his shoulders stooped, his hair messy from his impassioned fight to get words out. He still smelled a lot like the mustard he’d been doused with at the ballpark. And he was watching her with those relentless eyes of his.

She’s been planning on telling him that she wasn’t attracted to him. She loved him as a friend. Like a brother. A brother whose girlfriends were never good enough for her. A brother whom she’d admitted didn’t ‘kiss bad neither’…okay, Lenny was nothing like the brother she’d never had. Her thoughts ping-ponged around in her head, and Laverne felt dizzy with it. She needed to say no, nip this in the bud, tell him he was her close friend, but that was all. Plan for Rusty. Get on with life.  
Laverne didn’t know why the words came from her, suddenly and impassionedly. “Lenny, I can’t answer that right now.”

His eyes opened wider, but the intensity of his stare didn’t change. “That ain’t no,” he said.

“Len…”

He stepped back. “I’ll go. You don’t want me here now...”

“Lenny!” she said, and her voice took on a high, wheedling cadence. 

He stared at her, his thumb in the pocket of his good suit pants, his full lips caught in a pout. Laverne caught herself staring at them and shook herself out of her torpor.

“I’m getting out,” he said, without allowing her to say the words. 

Laverne stared at the empty space he’d left in her life for several more seconds, her eyes falling to his poorly-spelled demand for an apology, which sat forlornly on the floor after their tussle on the couch.

Laverne picked it up and sat there, staring at it, for minutes as her overstressed brain tried to process what had happened.

She couldn’t bring herself to throw the note away.

God, what was _wrong_ with her?

*** 

They had always been inexplicably drawn together. Laverne knew that. Maybe it was because they were too similar; motherless children starved for attention. She’d always known he’d liked her a little; no, a lot, with his incandescent, almost insane focus on her. But Lenny had always taken ‘no’ for an answer; had always walked away. He’d never pressed his luck this strongly before.

Which was why Laverne was hopelessly flummoxed by the situation and spent two weeks trying to avoid him, absorbing Shirley’s warnings and edicts and dire predictions. 

She went out with Rusty and the date was…mediocre. It wasn’t exciting, but not a nightmare, either – but no goosebumps. And worse yet, she found herself remembering what Lenny was like on their non-date – that he hadn’t been cheap. That he had been devoted, and kind. The only thing he’d lacked was that special spark to attract her. To make her heart beat faster.

That ‘it.’

Which was why, when she found him in the vestibule of the building, waiting for her after her date, she was half afraid he’d written a song about her and had no idea how to avoid it. He’d’ve scared her less were he holding a gun trained to her head.

She wasn’t expecting him to kiss her. Really kiss her. Holding her in place against Edna’s floral wallpaper and kiss her like the world was about to end. One of his hand was filled with a bundle of something wrapped in cellophane. Roses. She could smell them.

Her toes curled in her pumps. Her heart took a flying leap and began to pound in her ears. Her hands spread themselves out across his back like protective wings.

He released her abruptly and before she could scold or punch him, he regarded her gravely. 

“You can have that every day, if you want,” he said, and tossed the bouquet at her feet.

Then he left her alone in the hallway, staring up after him, three floors to the roof, trying to rub the goosebumps from her flesh, and wondering what to do about the roses.

*** 

Three years passed before he pressed her back-first against another wall - that of a Sheraton in Detroit.

They didn’t even manage to make it to the bed that time. He rucked her skirt up and she ripped the buttons off of his fly and, giddy, heaved her legs up and around his hips.

Lenny stared into her eyes as he sank into her by inches, making her grasp his upper arms and her jaw drop, her nails scoring up to his shoulders against bare flesh, gently. She felt pinned there – by his need and his wants and her own lust. It was rougher than she knew he wanted it to be, and quicker than SHE knew she wanted it to be, but they could work on it.

He did write a song about that, later on.

He played it for her on their first anniversary.

She wiped her eyes when he finished. “You figured out minks and Sphinx don’t rhyme, huh?”

“Shut up,” he said, and kissed her lips. “I love you.”

She loved him, too.


	5. 1961 - Tribute

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Altercanon for "Why did the Fireman...?"

When the rabbit dies, no one gives Laverne grief. They look at her with big, sympathetic eyes, and they whisper behind her back in soft, hushed murmurs. _Poor Laverne,_ they say. _She and Randy were going to be married. They must have…_

Laverne knows what they “must have” done. She’s not ashamed they did it.

But no one’s making her feel ashamed about it, either. Even Shirley. Instead, she experiences waves of pity, sad looks askance. People buy her free food and pull her chair out. Her foreman at work gives her extra shifts or time off, depending on what he thinks she needs the most. Even her Pop is gentle with her. He’s already offered to babysit.

But none of them know that Laverne DeFazio hates pity, hates being simpered at. 

***

Every guy on Randy’s shift asks her to marry him at least once. She turns them all down, gently, with sad smiles and pats of her hand. Shirley is anxious about this, and frequently suggests that she ought to say yes, but the word dies on her lips whenever Laverne thinks of it. Not today. Not with these guys.

Because she knows why they’re asking, and it doesn’t have anything to do with her and everything to do with Randy and what he meant to them.

She understands, and is nice about it.

*** 

When Lenny asks her, she says yes right away.

His blue eyes are very wide as they take her in. “What?” he asks. 

“Yeah, I’ll marry you,” she says. 

“Why?” he says. The little cheap diamond ring wiggles in his white-knuckled grip.

“Huh?”

“Why?” he asks again. “I gotta know, Laverne. Why’d you pick me? I saw all the guys who’ve asked you.”

“Because I know you love me,” she says. And she can feel his arms around her, “You’re not doing it ‘cause of the baby, or because it’s because Randy would want you to. You’re doing it for me.”

“Okay,” Lenny gulps. “Do you love me?”

“Len…”

“Do you love me?” he asks intensely. “I need to know.”

“I love you,” she says, and says it looking right into his eyes.

“Just as a friend?” he wonders. 

She shakes her head. “That’s all I can give you for awhile. But it’s a start,” she reminds him.

“All right,” he says. 

“Okay,” she says.

He takes her hand and they go inside the building to tell their friends.

*** 

The wedding isn’t too bad, considering how hysterical Shirley’s been all month. And all the cops and firemen in Milwaukee show up – alongside some of Lenny and Squiggy’s reform school pals. It’s a weird mix, but she thinks she’ll be able to get used to it. And Lenny’s there, holding back her hair when she tosses up her wedding cake due to morning - ugh, no, afternoon - sickness.

Later, when they’re alone, Laverne has no idea how to approach the night without Randy’s memory there to guide her. But Lenny kisses a circle around her navel when they’re alone in their new apartment just before he lifts up her nightgown, the lights low, his pale body nude against her thighs. She knows right then and there he’ll love Randy’s baby as if it were his own – the same as any baby they might have together in the future. The trust between them flowers like a rose. He is careful with her, gentle.

When she comes, for the first time it doesn’t seem like a betrayal of Randy’s memory. Inside of her a moment later, too quickly but so eagerly, Lenny follows behind, the obvious adoration in his expression causing her heart to fly.

“You wanna sandwich?” he asks, much later, when he can draw an even breath. And when he says it he wiggles one of his blonde eyebrows ridiculously. 

Laverne laughs, and pushes a lock of his greasy hair back. Somewhere deep inside of her, just like her Pop promised, it starts hurting a little less.


	6. 1965 - Lug Nuts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Altercanon for "I Do, I Do"

The scent of reefer and patchouli tickled Laverne’s nostrils as she blinked awake. Blearily, she surfaced from her sleepy, happy haze and let out a moan, brushing her fingers through her tangled hair. She glanced down at herself and realized she’d never managed to change out of the black party dress she’d worn to the London Bridge’s soiree. 

There was also a long, pale arm looped over her midsection.

Laverne bit back a screech, fighting her way from beneath the grip of the guy next to her. After what felt like hours, her head was clear again, and the memory of what she’d done crashed in on her like a cheap plaster ceiling.

The party for the London Bridges – the brownies she and Shirley had eaten. The boys had crashed it, dressed like Simon and Garfunkel, and they’d both gotten very, very big contact highs in the jolly room. Two of the boys had come on to Laverne and Shirley, and the girls had agreed to go to Las Vegas with them.

But that was not Derek‘s arm wrapped around Laverne’s middle. That was not him snoring softly against her shoulder – and that was not his washer on her ring finger. 

Did British bands even know what washers were? Laverne heaved the arm from around her waist and squirmed to the opposite end of the bed, her eyes wild.  
_Think!_ she demanded of herself, but couldn’t do anything – the only thing she could do was stare at the paper-colored back of the man beside her as it heaved. And the stupid, blond curls that made him look more like Harpo Marx than Art Garfunkel. 

Laverne took quick inventory of herself – yep, panties were still in place, bra hadn’t been shifted about – much. Lenny was shirtless…she peeked under the covers and got a brief glimpse of paper-colored but very firm buns and let go of the sheet. Okay, he was bottomless too. 

“Len?” she tried, but it came out as a Bronx squeak. Then she shoved his shoulder. “LENNY!”

“Wah?!” he whined, turning toward her and trying to pull her into his arms. “Laverne.”

“Len!”

One blue eye flew open, and he stared at her, realization painting his features with horrified clarity. “Laverne!” he squawked out, grabbing the blanket and holding it to his groin. “What are you doing in my bed?” This his expression shape-shifted. “Heh, did you come to…?”

“Len, open your eyes and look around,” she told him. Quickly, he did so. “Does any of this look familiar?”

He scratched the top of his head. “Kind of? I think I had a dream about a place like this. And you were in it!” But then he added. “But you were way more naked than that in it.” 

She promptly smacked him across the face with a pillow. “Len! Focus! Why are we in a motel room?” she held out her ring finger. “Why do I got this on my finger?”

Lenny’s eyes darted from her finger to her face. Then he held up his own hand and stared at the washer that shone there. “What happened last night?”

“I don’t know! All I remember is being with the guys from the London Bridges and one of them asked me to marry them and somehow I’m in this room! With you! And that silly wig!”

“It ain’t a wig,” he admitted, wincing as he patted his permed head. “Lemme think, all right? Maybe I’ll come up with what happened.”

Laverne lay back in the bed and closed her eyes tightly. Her Pop was going to go wild. Worse yet – she was going to have to deal with whatever kind of mess she’d made with the rockstars she had left behind. If they were indeed back in Los Angeles and not in England by now.

A high-pitched shriek sounded from the next room, then a pair of fists began to hammer against the door connecting Laverne and Lenny’s suite with…another couple. “Laverne! It’s Shirley!”

“Shirl!” Laverne darted out of bed and pried open the door and Shirley threw herself through the gap. “What’s wrong?” she asked, grabbing her best friend into her arms and nearly falling on the floor in the process.

“Oh Laverne! I had the most horrible dream! There were so many hands! So many roving, pinching fingertips! It was like being in bed with a carwash! A carwash with twenty fingers!”

“Geeze, Shirl! What kind of creep did you end up in bed with?”

“Hello!” someone called from the other side of the door.

*** 

Redressed, regrouped, and arguing at an only slightly pitched volume, the four of them found a seat at the buffet downstairs and tried to soak up the aftereffects of their highs with food. After all, it worked on hangovers. 

“Okay, we need to figure out what happened last night,” Laverne said, once they’d cleaned their plates.

“That’s just what they want you to do!” Squiggy shouted.

“They who?!” Laverne wondered.

“Everyone!” Squiggy said, and left it at that.

Shirley shoved his shoulder. “Do you have anything remotely important to add to this conversation?”

“Yeah, that was the worst wedding night I ever had,” Squiggy said. Then to Lenny and Laverne, pleadingly, he added, “she made me sleep in the closet!”

“You tried to lick my toes!”

“I thought they were calling my name!” he protested.

“Everyone shut up!” Laverne said. “Shirl, do you remember anything about last night?”

Shirley closed her eyes. “We were at the party. London was flirting with me, even though Laverne has a crush on him – oh my God, I’m so sorry, Laverne.”

“Don’t think it matters now, Shirl,” Laverne grunted.

“Anyway, London and Derek asked us to marry them, but then there was…I remember a dark cloud.”

“It was all the pot smoke,” Lenny blurted out, between huge bites of the omelet sandwich he’d made for himself. “They proposed to you and took you into the jolly room. You both started giggling and talking funny. So…”

“…So you and Squiggy rescued us by pretending to be our husbands,” Shirley realized. “But that doesn’t explain…”

A fuzzy memory came back to Laverne. “They were going to sue us for breach of promise because we wouldn’t marry them,” she said. “And we said ‘oh yeah! We can prove we’re married!’ and they said ‘how!?’ And we said we needed to go to Reno to get our certificates.”

“I think Squig said on the bus he knew a guy who could forge them for us,” Lenny said. “We just needed to get married and get ‘em filed so they’d look official.” 

“Yeah, I’m a great liar,” said Squiggy confidently.

“Which is why we’re all in Reno!” the four of them said together. The relief they shared instantaneously died when they looked at their ring fingers.

“And married,” said Laverne. “How’re we gonna handle that?”

“Get the certificates, fake the date, and get those singers off your back. If they wanted to get you high before you got married, then they wanted something funny outta you,” said Lenny.

“Unlike us, who just wanna to get our hands down your blouses," said Squiggy. Lenny bit his palm, and then cowered when Laverne glared at him.

“That’s disgusting,” Shirley proclaimed.

“Yeah, but it’s truthful,” Squiggy said. “You owe us for not constipating this marital wing-ding.”

“Well, if we didn’t ‘consummate’ then that still don’t explain why Lenny was naked when I woke up this morning,” Laverne said.

“Naked?!” Shirley squeaked. “He was naked?! Laverne, you didn’t tell me he was naked!”

“I didn’t have time there!” Laverne said. “What was I supposed to do, hold you and throw his underwear at him at the same time?!” Shirley let out a scream that alarmed several nearby patrons.

Lenny squirmed with embarrassment, and then bent close to the table so no one else could hear him. “Yeah well, me wearing pants don’t mean nothing! I don’t sleep with my pants on,” Lenny said. “It chokes my little guy to death, he needs air to breathe!”

“Yeah,” said Squiggy. “Why do you think I wouldn’t let my sister stay with us last time she was in town?”

“I don’t want to know,” Shirley said. 

“The same reason our sheets were so hard back in Milwaukee,” said Squiggy, earning him a push from Lenny and disgusted groans from Laverne and Shirley.

*** 

Laverne and Lenny strolled off together after they finished breakfast. Squiggy and Shirley had gone to check their room for the licenses, and then check them out of the motel. No one knew how they’d be able to afford the night they’d spent in the moderately-priced casino, but they were definitely starting to worry about the cost.

“Hey, Laverne,” Lenny said, as they strolled by the rows of slot machines and headed toward the front of the house. 

“What, Len?”

“I just wanted to thank you for last night. It was nice getting married to someone I like, even though I only sorta remember it and I was dressed like Art Garfield at the time.”

“You’re welcome,” Laverne said, shaking her head. Lenny was a thousand different things – wild and crazy and undisciplined and aggressive and gentle and loving and tender and mean and kind – but right now he was terrible vulnerable, watching her face for some sign that she was offended by his honesty.

“It was the nicest wedding night I could’ve hoped for,” Lenny said sincerely. “I mean, you didn’t stab me or nothing.”

She sighed. “Well, you didn’t do anything stab-worthy. Least as far as I can remember. But that’s the trouble, Lenny. You don’t remember most of what happened.”

“So? Now it’s the best night I’ll never forget.” She shook her head at his logic. “Hey, I’m gonna get a bus schedule.” Impulsively, he bent and pecked her on the cheek, then took and squeezed one of her hands gently in his grip. “Wait here, Mrs. Kosnowski.”

She stared after him for a few minutes after he’d departed, her hand cupped to the spot he’d kissed, momentarily entranced in a way that no drug had ever managed to accomplish.


	7. 1966 - Flipper

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Altercanon for "I Do, I Don't."

Laverne grunted as she picked up a pile of trash and dumped it outside the elegant meeting room door. She has no idea how Carmine and Shirley were going to haul and divide the pile of presents left over from their non-wedding, but she knew she wouldn’t be the one helping them do it. The maid of honor was pooped, and she had personally declared her duties for the afternoon Over and Done.

“Hey, Laverne.” 

She also wanted to be alone, but naturally the universe wouldn’t grant that favor. “Hey, Len.”

He stuck his hands into the pocket of his suit and rocked on his heels, trying to look innocent – or perhaps actually feeling just that way.“Need help with those boxes?” 

“Oh, sure.” He took two of the larger ones with a grunt and carried them off, toward the ice cream truck. 

It was empty, and Laverne has to ask, “Hey, where’s Squig?”

“Oh, he picked up one of the wedding guests – the tall girl with the goiter.”

“Oh,” Laverne remarked. “That’s…nice.”

“They’re over at her place for the night.” Lenny shook his head and walked back with her to the reception hall. “Boy, that’s just Squig. That little guy could pick up a gal at a funeral.”

A charming mental image – then she flashed back to Milwaukee and the mortician she’d tried to date. “Yep. He wouldn’t be Squig if he didn’t, though.” They’d finished loading the presents into the truck when the coordinator of this evening’s disaster rushes up to them in a flurry.

“Hello! Have you seen _Miss_ Feeney?” she asked.

“She and the sorta-groom went off together.” Probably to make out near the Hollywood Hills, which had become the gang’s new predestined place to go with dates – their own very public Inspiration Point. 

“Well, that won’t do! There’s an entire honeymoon suite prepared for her!”

Laverne paused, her lips in a thoughtful moue. The wedding organizer waited for her with hands tucked against her hips, looking flummoxed by the entire evening’s progress, and Laverne couldn't really blame her but there’s nothing she could do to smooth that pathway now that Shirley and Carmine have merrily left the scene. Laverne turned her back to the woman and pulls Lenny closer. “Hmm…”

Lenny stood behind her, his eyebrow going up. “Hmm?” he echoed Laverne. “I know what that look means, Laverne.”

She shrugged. “Nothing. We don’t have anything else to do tonight…Carmine and Shirley are probably going to end up doing something alone in our apartment and she don’t want me around to spoil it. And Squig’s off having fun in yours, right…?”

“You’re saying we should take it? You and me?” He raised an eyebrow. “After the Royal Cactus?”

Her old self rose up before Laverne – the one who had declared a night alone with Lenny in a dark and sleazy motel room “every girl’s nightmare” only a few years hence. But on the other hand – well, why not have fun? And it was Lenny. She’d spent whole nights alone with him in her apartment and nothing had ever happened between them or to her. He was downright sweet most of the time when he didn’t have Squiggy egging him on to grab at her. 

Smiling sweetly, Laverne turned toward the coordinator. “Uh, do you mind if me and my…boyfriend…spend the night there?”

She threw her hands in the air. “I don’t care who uses the suite, as long as it’s being used!”

Laverne looked at Lenny. Lenny shrugged. “Okay, we’ll take it.”

“I didn’t offer…oh damn it, never mind,” she growled, and ran off to the nearest phone booth.

*** 

Laverne and Lenny found themselves being whisked off to the honeymoon suite of the local Econolodge. While the surroundings weren’t nearly as fancy as the Pfister, they were clean and cozy – and came with a basket of champagne and a bunch of cookies wrapped in plastic wrap. There was also a box of chocolates, which Lenny immediately ripped into, offering her up the chocolate creams and coconut clusters she had always adored.

“Boy, lookit this room!” Lenny said, as she ate chocolate and let the luxurious, better-than-Hershey’s chocolate. He glanced at the TV. “You even get free color TV!” 

“We can get that if we go up to Carmine’s apartment at home,” Laverne pointed out, flopping onto the bed with a groan, putting the box aside.

“Sure,” Lenny said. “But he don’t let us watch Flipper, and who wants to see Hawaii in black in white? Pleh!” 

She snorted and made room for him on the bed. The theme to Flipper filled the room, and they hummed along to it. When Lenny bounced against the mattress to the rhythm, it made a loud scrunching sound, and Laverne couldn’t help but laugh and bounce to the rhythm. 

Soon they were both standing on the bed, bouncing up and down like a couple of kids. The bouncing led to a major case of the giggles, which led to them collapsing on the bed and joining each other in a laughing heap.

“This is the most fun I’ve had in a long time,” Lenny said. And she was surprised to realize she felt the same way. California could be so fake, so weird and plastic and frightening – nothing like the unglamorous haven that was Milwaukee. She felt more comfortable with Lenny than with any guy she’d met in LA, even Sonny – it was easy. She didn’t need sprays and perfumes and potions and make-up with him, to cover up her age, her smell, or her incipient wrinkles.

“Me too,” Laverne confessed. “It’s nice not to be alone here,” she admitted. “It’s nice not to be alone with my feelings this time.”

“Wait, you got feelings?” Lenny asked.

“Um…” She didn’t want to let him know that much. She’d barely been able to articulate the fact to herself.

And then she shocked herself by kissing him.

*** 

Shirley always made fun of Laverne for that. “You fell in love on my honeymoon! With Lenny!” 

Maybe so, maybe so.

But she also got a great toaster out of it.


	8. 1967 - Roommate

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alter-Canon for "The Note"

Laverne groaned as she headed to the front door. “Let me guess. Lenny’s pick.” She paused and trailed off, however, as she spied the person standing there. “Lenny?”

He placed his suitcase before his torso. “Yep, me,” he said shyly. “Uh, Squig’s been making the move on Francine lately and he’s been giving some pretty big hints that I oughta find somewhere else to stay just in case she agrees to take his hand in connubial bliss. So how’s about it?”

The idea of sharing a room with Lenny made Laverne’s life flash before her eyes, but she couldn’t turn him down. 

“Fine, but you gotta stay on the couch for a little while.” She couldn’t sleep with the guy on double beds, no matter how much she liked him as a friend.

“Good,” Lenny said eagerly. “Where do you keep your Bosco? I’m gonna make my special chocolate chicken for you tonight!”

Laverne’s lip curled up instinctively – but then again, it wasn’t different from eating Scooter Pies and tunafish together, was it? 

As time passed, Laverne came to accept most of Lenny’s quirks, and Lenny crept closer to the bedroom. He wasn’t bad to live with – at least not as bad as Squiggy and his clarinet had been back in Milwaukee. But the closeness wasn’t a conscious choice made by either of them. When you spend your evenings always with someone, listening to their troubles, hearing them laugh, drying their tears, watching them eat – it becomes less important that instant goosebumps don’t happen the second they walk into the room. Goosebumps, Laverne learns quickly, can happen without warning, when someone brushes your hand – or kisses your cheek. 

They snuck off to get married in the middle of the August night, with Squiggy and Rhonda in tow. Shirley was incensed that Laverne hadn’t waited for her.

“You have a little boy and hemorrhoids. No one wants to sit on a plane for ten hours and deal with either of those!”

“Must you put it crudely?” Shirley sniffled. Laverne promised to make it up to her best friend, somehow. How, Laverne didn’t know yet.

But she supposed fair was fair, since Shirley had left her in the middle of the night without much more than a note.

*** 

And so it was that Laverne ended up waiting for her wedding night. Well, at least with Lenny.

And it was a pretty darn good experience. He was eager, wild, and she responded immediately, gushing into his palm, melting for him. 

Later, panting in the tangled sheets of the new king sized bed they’d bought in celebration of their marriage, Lenny grinned at her and kissed her lips.

He sat back and looked at her. “See? And that’s why you shoulda eloped with me when I asked the day we found out Shirley was gonna get married.”

She poked his ribs. “It woulda never worked out,” she yawned, wrapping her arms around his middle. 

“Why? Whatt’d you miss out on? Getting almost killed by that gymnast guy? Going out with that guy who thought you wanted to do it with Carmine? Getting possessed by that ghost?” 

Laverne glared at him. “Shut up or you go back to the couch.”

She snuggled deeper into his grip, though, as she said it. He immediately knew that she was kidding, and that he wasn’t going anywhere.

Lenny had found his place, and, had Shirley not vacated hers, they would have never realized that he was where he’d belonged all along. There was a silver lining to every cloud after all, Laverne thought, and held on to her new husband as she drifted away.


	9. 1969 - Rain

_1969_

Laverne wove flowers through her hair on the day she stood outside of a yurt and married Lenny Kosnowski. Years later she would make fun of herself – the sheer clichéd nature of her choice – but at the moment it felt appropriate. Lenny liked daisies, so she’d picked daisies and had the girls weave them through her hair.

The commune was a nice, fairly quiet if pretty druggy. The sheer amount of pot she was being exposed to on a daily basis would have impressed the London Bridges, and frankly it made her yearn for a can of Shotz (which was forbidden in the high California hills – they brewed their own terrible-tasting stuff, a way to avoid selling out to ‘the man’.). She and Lenny were heavily involved in the peace marches and equality rallies that the commune made a way of life, and that was the glue that held them in place, among the flowers and deer and thick, poorly-toasted oatmeal breakfasts.

That they were doing something more traditional than ‘shacking up’ was in of itself a wonder to the people who lived at the commune. She and Lenny weren’t keeping the fact that they shared a yurt secret from the rest of the people there; it was accepted that they were sleeping together, though the fact that they weren’t ‘sharing’ themselves with the others there was a shocking fact. It was shocking enough to Laverne that she’d run off to a commune with Lenny Kosnowski.  
Her father’s knock disrupted Laverne’s thoughts. Skye and Wind giggled beside her, helping her into the off-white tunic and pants ensemble she’d hand-sewed for the occasion (poorly, she would figure out after several hours of enthusiastic dancing). “Just a minute, Pop!”

“I don’t gotta see you til you got to come out!” Frank insisted. But then he said, more softly, “you sure you wanna go through with this?”

Laverne sighed and wrenched open the door. Her father had shown up in a tuxedo, trying to cling to the last vestiges of tradition and sanity in this rapidly changing world. “Pop, me and Len are in love.”

“I know that!” Frank shouted. “What I don’t know is HOW DID IT HAPPEN?”

“It’s a long story,” Laverne said, holding her ears. 

“Your dad yells like, a lot,” said Wind.

“It’s super hurting my eyes,” said Sky, holding her ears.

He shot visual daggers at the girls. _Oh Boy._ “Pop, me and Len didn’t mean to fall in love. It’s just that with Shirl and Carmine gone, and you divorced from Edna, and Squig leaving with that Russian ballet company to fill in for that guy that looks like him, we got lonely. Len can write music and I…” Laverne still had no idea what she wanted to do, except tap dance, which one couldn’t do at a commune, but it didn’t really matter did it?

“All right, fine,” he glowered. “Go get dressed. I’ll walk you to the nut. But there’s a guy named Munchie ready to drive you out of this place if you don’t wanna get married tonight.”

“Pop, Munchie would sell his mom for a dime bag of weed,” she growled. 

“I don’t care if he’s Nixon as long as he can drive.”

Laverne sighed. The two flower girls stood beside her, pulling at Laverne’s hand-woven train. Her best friend arrived a moment later, and Laverne had to resist launching herself into Shirley’s arms.

Not that she had much space. Shirley was hugely pregnant with her second child at this point, and, swollen ankles and all, had shown up for the very unorthodox wedding. “A very nice man calling himself Peace Train offered to teach me how to do the dip, and I have no idea if that’s a reference to sexual congress or a new drug.”

“Just don’t take anything if he offers it to you,” Laverne said. Shirley gave a wise nod. She was beautiful, her hair growing out. She went down the aisle first, and then Laverne came running with her arm slung around her Pop

*** 

The reception was lively and fun. Lenny played with the ragtag band, and Laverne got drunk on the horrible tasting beer. They danced together too-closely, he in his tie-dyed shirt and jeans, she in her fancy wedding suit and headband and flowered hair. She danced with an emotional and colorfully-dressed Squiggy, and had a chat with the debs who had made it up. Rhonda sat among the commune members, silently absorbing the atmosphere, one eyebrow up. 

Laverne glanced at her best friend as the afternoon wore into the day and stormclouds rolled overhead, thick and black. She and Walter were distant – the staid military man shot looks of disdain at the audience, and loudly disapproved as little Davy ran around the reception diaperless like the other commune babies. Her best friend’s marriage was on a crash-course with eventual divorce, and Laverne couldn’t think of anything she could do to help out.

It began to pour, and they danced together in the rain with their friends in the mud, a mini-Woodstock. Lenny, as always, was a wonderful distraction. He’d be a good sounding board later. Right now – running under a hail of birdseed to the safety of the yurt, the rain pouring down on them both – Laverne only shook her hair free of the mess and watched him light up an oil lamp. 

She came to bed, and he wrapped his arm around her, and she rested in his grip, eyes shutting. 

“Laverne?” he said.

“Mmm?”

“I think I’m too stoned to do it.”

Laverne snorted. “I told you not to eat all of those funny brownies.”

Lenny shook his head at his own hubris. “Nobody’s perfect, Vernie,” he declared. “And I was hungry, and they were real dry…hey, do we have any beer left from the party?”

“Relax, Len,” she told him, and he squirmed closer to her and sighed.

“I’ll be normal in the morning.” She wanted to tell him he wasn’t normal at all, and that that was why she loved him, but bit her bottom lip. Thunder roared in the distance. “Listen to that rain fall,” Lenny said, looking skyward. 

“Sounds nice, doesn’t it?” she asked.

He nodded, burrowed closer to her. The rain began to thunder against the canvas over their heads, the music ceased, and they were alone in their sleeping bags with the canvas roof. 

Laverne could get used to this. This could be the rest of her life, and she’d embrace it with pure joy.

Though she definitely wanted the sex, too. 

Stupid brownies.


End file.
